Programmer and hardware enthusiast Dmitry Grinberg decided to test boot Linux using an Intel 4004 processor – launched in 1971 and turning 53 years old in 2024. What he didn’t expect was that the task would take almost 5 days to complete.
The professional recorded a video, which shows the slowness to perform any action within it – even after booting through the prompt. If it took 4.76 days just to see the message “Welcome to uMIPS: Feel free to look around slowly”, a simple listing of the files in the directory did not appear in less than 16 hours.
The Intel 4004 was the first commercial microprocessor, being launched in 1971 and predating the first version of Linux that was seen by the public by twenty years. Obviously he had to make some adjustments to make the system compatible with the CPU, the details of which you can read directly on his blog.
The text, called “Fully booting Linux on an Intel 4004 for fun, art and absolutely no profit”, shows that he had to emulate a MIPS R3000 processor – which has the necessary support for the C compiler.
The programmer also states that, even so, he had to make several changes to be able to run Linux slowly on the Intel 4004 – even though he underwent optimizations to make it faster. It reduced the kernel file to just 2.5MB – removing support for unnecessary features.
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According to Grinberg, with all the changes and optimizations made, he managed to reduce the time to boot Linux from 8.4 days to “just” 4.76 days.
It is also notable that its operations would be extremely slow, with tests being performed on the directory search command. The system took around 16 hours to list five to six files and a similar time was seen to type and execute a command to show the kernel version on the screen.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
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Source: https://www.adrenaline.com.br/intel/linux-leva-quase-5-dias-para-dar-boot-em-cpu-lancado-ha-mais-de-50-anos/
